Automatic Food Service Implements USAT’s Vending Management Software

Automatic Food Service (AFS) said it has improved service times since installing USA Technologies‘ Seed Pro, Seed Markets and Seed Office, software which tracks stocking and maintenance needs in one platform. AFS has also seen a 45 percent increase in sales per route since adopting the enterprise-wide platform.

“Our previous system did not provide insight into our machines’ stock levels or maintenance needs, which slowed down service times as we stopped at machines that didn’t need servicing, or in other cases, needed to circle back to the truck to pick up more inventory,” Trey Hamre, AFS operations manager, said in an emailed press release. “Seed’s dynamic pre-kitting and remote insight make restocking machines more efficient than our previous method, allowing us to get through our routes faster and easier than ever before.”

The report notes that AFS was able to onboard the new technology into its operations in as little as four months, leveraging one enterprise-wide platform for its vending machine and office coffee business. In addition, AFS was able to consolidate its total number of routes from 17 to 13 through an organization-wide simplification of scheduling, delivery and servicing, leading to even greater savings for the company.

“We are thrilled to learn of AFS’s measurement of their ROI following the introduction of USAT’s technology to their business operations,” said Maeve McKenna Duska, senior vice president of marketing, USA Technologies, a cashless payments and software services company that provides end-to-end technology solutions for the self-service retail market. “While AFS had previously converted nearly 1,350 of their vending machines to cashless, they did not have a system to maximize operational efficiency and easily monitor business outputs and metrics. We believe that AFS’s expansion of their relationship with us to include the Seed platform provided them with the optimal solution.”

Hamre added, “We were initially concerned about the transition, but in working closely with USAT’s Customer Success Manager team, we were able to rapidly deploy the Seed platform across our network while setting benchmark business metrics to track before and after the implementation.”